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Community gives Calgary family strength at candlelight vigil for missing boy and grandparents 0

A man sits stunned as he and other folks gathered for a candle-light vigil for Nathan and his grandparents Alvin and Kathryn Liknes at the Parkhill Community Hall in SW Calgary, Alta.on Thursday July 10, 2014. Stuart Dryden/Calgary Sun/QMI Agency

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The word comes up over and over again at a candlelight vigil Thursday night for Alvin and Kathryn Liknes and their five-year-old grandson Nathan O'Brien, missing almost two weeks now.

Family, friends and strangers at the gathering, in the southwest Calgary community of Parkhill, just around the corner from the Liknes home where the trio disappeared in a sudden and violent incident, say they still have hope all three will be found.

Hope when they’re found, it will be alive and well.

Hope despite an ongoing mystery that’s had investigators scouring locations in and around the city since June 30 with no firm answers found.

“We are very hopeful that they are still out there,” says Nathan’s mother, Jennifer O’Brien, standing with husband Rod O’Brien to address those assembled — assembled for them.

“There’s no doubt in our minds … they’ve just got to find them,” she says.

“I hope this ends up being a happy story … I think it will.”

Alvin’s son, Jeff Liknes says, “I don’t want to think of this as a funeral, because I know it’s not.”

Jeff’s brother Josh says he’s excited to see his parents and nephew again. He says he knows he will.

Next time he goes to see a superhero film with little Nathan, he says, “It’s going to be a good one.”

Hundreds of people from the Parkhill community and beyond come out to the neighbourhood’s community hall Thursday night and dozens speak to share their hope, to add it to a family so desperately clinging to theirs.